“You should come, too. Once they hear my debrief, the feds will be all over Owen Stephenson like white on rice. This place is coming down.”
“I can’t. If we all go at once, they’ll close up shop. You have to figure they have some kind of exit strategy, and we can’t trigger it or we won’t have any chance of getting the antidote. And we need it. We also need to know what kind of distribution network they’re setting up. No one goes to all this trouble to keep the women in their little kingdom compliant. They have bigger plans, which means plenty of outside assistance. If the dealers have access to a running supply, we’ll have to shut it down. So we need a few days to hack their computers, find the formulas. I’ll start with Jonas. We know from Elizabeth’s story that he’s connected to the outside world.”
“I’ll stall them as long as I can. Everyone’s gonna want a piece anyway—FBI, DEA, ATF—and alphabet soup always takes a while to make. The only issue might be if they mobilize a Joint Terrorism Task Force already in existence. That’d be quicker. But either way, I doubt I’ll be able to hold them off longer than, say, Friday. In fact, I’d guess Friday after close of business. When the news day is over.”
“That works. I don’t want Tara ingesting that poison any longer than absolutely necessary anyway. When you get out, call Ethan Donovan. He and his fiancée are camped outside of town waiting for word. He can get messages to me. It’s slow, but if there’s something I need to know, tell him.” He gave Kevin Ethan’s cell number and the other man recited it back.
“So—” But before Jake could continue the conversation, a movement in the darkness signaled that they were no longer alone. Moments later, Samuel materialized.
“Out late this evening,” he observed. “Any particular reason?”
“Nope,” said Kevin, deliberately hostile. “What about you? Going to tell us to go back to bed like good little children?”
Samuel’s eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem, Caleb?”
“And what if there is?”
“Then we will talk it out.” But Samuel’s hands tightened. He was more accustomed to using fists than words. Even Jake could see that much.
“Yeah, I’ll think about that.”
“The Leader wishes all the Chosen to be at peace. You should know that by now. You can bring any issue to him at any time.” Samuel turned to Jake. “And you, Jacob? I would have thought you’d be at home this evening.”
“Yeah, well, we went to bed early. Now I’m awake again, but she’s asleep.”
“You should return. Morning will be here soon enough. Caleb, I will make arrangements for you to speak with the Leader after breakfast.”
Kevin grunted, and he and Jake began to walk back toward their shared cabin.
“Jacob,” Samuel called. “A moment.” Jake stopped and watched Kevin disappear into the night. When he was gone, Samuel spoke. “Did he confide his concerns to you?”
As if you don’t know. Samuel hadn’t approached until they were out of range of listening devices.
Jake had no doubt he’d heard every work of their early conversation. He shrugged. “Not like we’re best buds. He’s having problems with Bea. He’ll get over it or he won’t.”
“That’s what he said? Problems in his relationship?”
“I don’t recall his exact words. Something like that. I don’t really feel right about talking about it behind his back, y’know? He and the Leader will work it out in the morning.” Loyalty, reluctance, just enough information so they wouldn’t believe he was shutting them out altogether.
Samuel nodded. “Just so. Thank you for your insight. Now, I am sure Serena would not wish to wake and find you gone.”
“Oh, she’s used to my midnight walkabouts,” Jake said, “but I take your point.” With a jerk of his head, he jogged off toward the cabin.
When he slipped inside he found that Tara had, indeed, wakened in his absence. Much to his disappointment, she’d also pulled on a T-shirt and wrapped herself in the quilt. She sat on the bed, knees drawn up beneath her chin and, despite all he knew of her strength of both body and mind, in that moment she appeared incredibly frail to him. He kicked off his shoes and crawled up the bed on all fours to plant a smacking kiss on her lips. Then he drew her over on top of him as he lay down and settled her head into the hollow of his shoulder.
“I thought you’d still be asleep. I never meant for you to wake up alone.”
“I’m fine. You went exploring?”
Of course she would understand why he’d left. Why, then, did her question feel almost like a rejection? He stroked her hair, smoothing the wild mess he’d made of it earlier as he answered.
“Kevin has a plan to get him and Elizabeth out tomorrow morning.” He explained the idea. “But it means we’re going to have to speed up our timetable. We only have until Friday. John was smart enough not to keep anything on the box I am using to update their site, but I’ve identified at least three other terminals on the network. I’m trying to get into them, but they’re protected. I have a pretty good idea which box belongs to who, and I just need the time and freedom from oversight to install the cracker program I have sitting on the server Ethan and I use.”
“It will give you access to the other computers?”
“More than that, it will copy their drives onto our server. The only problem would be if they’re keeping the important stuff on a completely dumb box with no connection to the network at all. But even though that’s the smartest way to operate, almost no one does it.”
“How long will the transfer take once you’ve installed the software?”
“Depends on how much data there is. But they’re running a pretty fast network. And while some security-conscious companies shut down their networks at night, I doubt Owen would. I can’t see his boys denying themselves hot and cold running porn, among the other advantages of the Internet.”
Tara shivered, and he pulled her tighter into his body and brushed a kiss across her forehead. She was remembering Elizabeth’s story. He wanted to swear such a thing could never happen to her, but he couldn’t. He’d seen too much. Too many good, strong, happy people, people who lived carefully and did all the right things had their lives decimated—if not stolen—because they randomly crossed the path of crazy. And Tara had willfully entered a compound filled with it.
He bent his head and pressed a kiss to her lips, letting his hands wander the curves of her body. He might not be able to promise her safety, but he could show her he’d be beside her no matter what came.
She stroked his chest beneath his shirt. Her fingertips trailed down across his belly, and his dick jumped to attention, begging for her touch. She unbuttoned his fly and curled her hand around him and all tender, melancholy thoughts were subsumed beneath a surge of seething desire. He tried to push her over onto her back, but she was having none of it. She knelt astride him, leaning on her hands, which pinned his biceps to the bed.
“My turn,” she whispered, and the shimmer of her breath over his ear dried his throat and raised his heart rate. Her hands moved to the hem of his shirt, and she let him up just enough to ease it off. In a single, fluid move, she lifted and twisted so she knelt beside rather than atop him, and in short order she worked his jeans over his hips and down his legs until he lay before her completely nude.
She still wore her T-shirt and panties, and he wanted to strip her of them, but the look in her eyes mesmerized him. She stared at his body as if he were a seven-course meal and she could not decide where to begin. But more than lust shone in those blue pools. Fear, hope, longing and something he couldn’t—didn’t dare—put a name to lurked in their depths.
She ran her fingers lightly over the skin of his belly and he shuddered. Her nails had always been short, practical, but well maintained. Now they were broken, ragged. They scratched as she explored him, the sensation not entirely unpleasant. But when she leaned
over and pressed her hot mouth against his, the spell broke and he grabbed her shirt and dragged it over her head, exposing her gorgeous breasts and soft, smooth, skin. He sat up and captured one rosy nipple in his mouth, reveling as much in her gasp of surprised pleasure as in the taste of her against his tongue.
For a moment, Tara held his head in place, arching into him, but then she shoved him back. “I said it’s my turn.” She pressed hot, openmouthed kisses to his neck, then down across his chest. Her tongue flicked out to taste each of his nipples in turn and they tightened beneath her mouth and shot fire straight to his groin. His breath stuck in his lungs as she moved slowly down his body, her long hair cloaking her face and tickling his skin.
Gently she bit down on one of his protruding hip bones, then soothed it with her tongue. He clenched his teeth together and forced himself not to beg. And when she shifted to the other side, the slow slide of her silken hair across his skin was so precisely like his fantasies that he almost came on the spot.
Her hands, cool skin overlaying a pulse of hot blood, held down his thighs as she licked a line from his balls all the way up his throbbing cock. He fisted his hands in the sheets to prevent himself from grabbing her head and pushing it down on him.
She swirled her tongue over and around the head of his cock, and his hips jerked. He felt her smile against his skin.
“Like that, do you?”
“Jesus, woman, are you trying to kill me?”
Her fingers squeezed, massaged. “Now, what fun would that be?” she whispered, the brush of air sliding across his damp skin driving him even higher.
He reached down to pull her up, but she slid her mouth over his cock, sucking him deep, and he was lost. She made a tiny, satisfied hum in the back of her throat, and he felt it vibrate along his cock and, impossibly, straight through his heart. She began to move, advancing and retreating, squeezing his balls in time with the movements of her mouth, and he knew he wouldn’t last.
“Sweetheart, please,” he said, burying his hands in her hair and urging her up his body, “I don’t want—I need to be inside you.” At first he thought she might ignore him, but then she raised her head, shimmied out of her panties, and swung her leg over to kneel astride him. Holding him in position, she lowered her body slowly onto his. She was soaking wet, turned on just from giving him pleasure. He loved touching her, pleasing her, but hadn’t believed she could feel the same kind of thrill. Her head fell back, and he wished he could raise himself up and suckle her, mark her the way she’d marked his shoulder with her teeth, but there was no time: with her first gyration atop him, his balls tightened.
He reached for her, determined not to leave her behind, but even before his fingers found their mark, he felt her spasms begin to milk him, sending him rocketing out into the stars.
And when he came back to earth, his only coherent thought was that nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter Eight
THE MORNING HORNS woke Tara from a lovely dream, and she burrowed deep where she lay with her head in the hollow of Jake’s shoulder to hang on to it for a last, precious second. In that soft, sweet netherworld of dreams, Jake had told her he loved her and though he held her now just as he had then, cruel reality revealed all the world’s hard edges disguised by her dream state, and she recognized the fantasy for what it was.
Next door, she heard Kevin and Elizabeth stirring. Today the fight to bring down the Chosen would begin in earnest. She shivered, and Jake tucked her tighter against the heat of his body.
“Ready, sweetheart?”
“As I’ll ever be.” The rusty, husky quality of her own voice surprised her.
Jake tipped her head back and bent over to kiss her. “Then I guess it’s time to face the crowd.” He released her and rolled from the bed, and Tara had to squelch the urge to hang on to him. A dream hangover, nothing more. She washed up and dressed, and she and Jake headed for the dining hall. Kevin and Elizabeth were nowhere to be seen.
At the door, Jake left her with a brush of his lips over her forehead, and she found a seat next to an older woman, Leah, with whom she’d been working on the linens. Still, Kevin and Elizabeth did not appear. Had they been found out? Disciplined? Owen usually liked to make such things public, but what if he’d figured out that Kevin was DEA?
Leah passed her the pot of tea, and Tara’s stomach rose into her throat. She fought back the urge to puke. You have to drink it. Not only would passing alert any watchers, but she could not afford to go through withdrawal, not when it had proven fatal in every case they knew of.
Up at the disciples’ table, both Samuel and Aaron suddenly jerked to attention. Pagers. Or cell phones set to vibrate. Kevin must be making his move. Both men pushed back their chairs and headed for the door, causing a stir among the Chosen, who found anything outside their routine alarming. Many left their seats to investigate the disturbance.
Tara saw Joy among those peering out the windows and went to join her.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure.” Worry lurked in the woman’s fathomless brown eyes.
Kevin and Elizabeth came into view, flanked by Aaron and Samuel, and Owen walked out from the main house to meet them in the yard.
“What’s the problem?” Kevin asked, loud and belligerent. “I thought you had an open-door policy. We want to leave, so we’re leaving.”
“Of course you can leave. We would never force you to stay. But come and talk to me—let’s sit down together and so I can hear and address your concerns.”
“I don’t have any concerns. It’s just time for me to be moving on.”
“And what about Bea? And her baby? You think you speak for them, too?”
“Tell them you want to come with me, Bea.”
She looked up at him, then at Owen.
“Tell them.”
“I want to leave.” Tara saw her lips form the words, but if she spoke them, she did so very quietly.
Jonas stepped out of the dining hall and approached the group. He gestured to Elizabeth and she stepped slightly behind Kevin. Tara could not hear his words, but she had a damn good idea what he was saying. She clenched her fists against the urge to storm out and beat the living hell out of him.
Owen apparently decided that arguing with the members of his congregation in public was counterproductive, so he backed away. “Go with our blessings, then,” he said. “May the Powers always watch over you. Feel free to return if the Outside becomes too difficult, too depressing and grim.” He glanced over at the dining hall, where almost everyone had gathered to watch the show. “Our day has been interrupted long enough.” He strode back toward the hall, and the Chosen began to filter back to their seats.
Joy put a hand on Tara’s arm. “Did you know they planned to leave?”
Tara shook her head. “Bea wasn’t feeling well yesterday. Maybe Caleb just doesn’t trust that she can get good enough medical care here.”
“Deborah is an excellent healer.” Joy’s eyes narrowed as she watched Kevin and Elizabeth move in the direction of the front gate. “I doubt he is taking her away out of concern for her health.”
It was the closest Tara had ever heard Joy come to criticizing, but then, she probably felt betrayed. She was a true believer.
“Maybe they’ll come back. After all, they couldn’t have been very happy on the Outside or they wouldn’t have joined in the first place,” Tara offered, and Joy nodded slowly.
The sermon that morning lasted even longer than usual, and Tara felt herself nodding off. She hadn’t wanted to sleep at all the night before. Sex with Jake was like nothing she’d ever experienced, and it might never happen again. Sure, they were living together for the next few days, but between Jake’s midnight explorations and the fact that she’d practically had to attack him to get him into bed, she had no idea whether he’d let his guard down again.
And once they were out of the compound, once life got back to normal, he’d be gone. Men like Jacob Nolan didn’t fall for women like her in real life, despite what happened in fairy tales and romance novels. Men like Jake ended up with women like her friend Lucy—beautiful, smart, competent—women who didn’t screw up their friends’ lives as well as their own.
At long last, the sermon ended and food was passed down the table. Having missed dinner the night before, Tara piled eggs, potatoes, and toast on her plate. A few seats down on the other side, Aurora grinned at her, and Tara felt herself blush. She glanced over at Jake, and he had the balls to wink, which only increased the heat in her face.
Joy, seated opposite Aurora, watched the whole interaction. “I am glad things are working out for you and Jacob,” she said. “Life among the Chosen is not for everyone, and when he first arrived, he seemed as if he might not be happy here.”
No joke. Tara was honestly shocked that anyone bought Jake’s cover. Sure, he had the experience and intelligence to back up the geek persona, but everything about the way he carried himself screamed “predator.” How could they all miss it?
“Now that he has the website to manage, he’s happier,” she said. “I really hope he can learn to relax here, though. Outside, he was really into games and stuff, and I am a bit worried he’ll eventually miss the excitement of all that.”
“He’s a thrill seeker?” Joy examined Jake. “Hard to imagine.”
Hard to imagine? The woman had clearly been living in the compound too long.
“Well, at least online he is. And then there was the booze. And a few minor run-ins with the law. Nothing serious. But still. Being away from all that will be good for him if he can only accept it.” She did her best to sound like both an eager convert and a woman blinded by love.
• • •
JAKE LOVED TO watch Tara blush. To be fair, he loved to watch her, period. But when she glanced his way and her face went hot, a ridiculous bubble of happiness rose in his chest.
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